tcm
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\"What now skip\" - the ultimate question
You are an experienced mobo skipper on your very specific boat on August 16th at two hours of the afternoon BST hanging around in the marina, as is often the case.
You are re-reading some of your favourite articles from old copies of MBY when your attention is diverted by that likeable tho somewhat lunatic boat-newbie whom you all know simply as "Moby" from just along the pontoon. He's arriving with his latest boat ( making 3 in his first season), back to the marina and yet again he has fewer crew/ working engines/boats than the number with which he set out.
Moby does at least have his girlfriend with him, all in bandages after a previous escapade. And once he's crunched his now one-engined boat a bit and finally stopped and tied up, he comes over to you on your boat to chat excitedly about his latest near-disaster, the blood, the helicopters and all the rest of it.
Moby knows you've had boats for ages, that you're much more experienced than he is, and that you actually read boat mags from time to time which he never does.
Now, you aren't particularly proud of the fact that it's actually by following YOUR suggestions that the luckless moron has set off on *all* of his ill-fated trips, one per month, ever since he bought his first boat only a year ago - though it seems far longer.
But his vast litany of self-inflicted calamities can't really be all your fault. After all, the last time he asked you for suggestions you sent him out on a calm sunny day, miles from anyone else AND you even tipped off the rescue services beforehand so that he only had to "call them" (his trip was written up again in MBY, again) and the coastguard somehow instantly knew all the details of where he was with none of that long-winded vhf mayday whatsit rigmarole. After all, since he still knows so little about first aid, engine maintenance, passage planning and so forth, you guessed (correctly) he won't know much about using vhf either. But despite all your precautions on his behalf on that last episode , his girlfriend *still* ended up in hospital for over a month.
Poor old Moby still hasn't twigged that he and mobos just don't seem to mix, that your ideas are just bad news for him, and yet ..here he is again, questioning you about what it's like in the west country, the French coast, the Med and more. In the past, you've suggested that perhaps he tries another sport or pastime such as the cinema, banger racing or anything but Moby is a latter-day Mr Toad and won't hear a word of quitting his beloved motorboating. He's also quite well off since his well-insured wife and family were mangled by a ferry last summer, so you can get him to change boats no problem.
So, as before, it's pretty much in your hands to point this luckless dolt in any particular direction for his next adventure, another one which will almost certainly end with a crisis of possibly fatal proportions for him and/or his crew. Essentially, YOU decide where he goes, in what boat, on what day and with which crew. So...what now skip?
You are an experienced mobo skipper on your very specific boat on August 16th at two hours of the afternoon BST hanging around in the marina, as is often the case.
You are re-reading some of your favourite articles from old copies of MBY when your attention is diverted by that likeable tho somewhat lunatic boat-newbie whom you all know simply as "Moby" from just along the pontoon. He's arriving with his latest boat ( making 3 in his first season), back to the marina and yet again he has fewer crew/ working engines/boats than the number with which he set out.
Moby does at least have his girlfriend with him, all in bandages after a previous escapade. And once he's crunched his now one-engined boat a bit and finally stopped and tied up, he comes over to you on your boat to chat excitedly about his latest near-disaster, the blood, the helicopters and all the rest of it.
Moby knows you've had boats for ages, that you're much more experienced than he is, and that you actually read boat mags from time to time which he never does.
Now, you aren't particularly proud of the fact that it's actually by following YOUR suggestions that the luckless moron has set off on *all* of his ill-fated trips, one per month, ever since he bought his first boat only a year ago - though it seems far longer.
But his vast litany of self-inflicted calamities can't really be all your fault. After all, the last time he asked you for suggestions you sent him out on a calm sunny day, miles from anyone else AND you even tipped off the rescue services beforehand so that he only had to "call them" (his trip was written up again in MBY, again) and the coastguard somehow instantly knew all the details of where he was with none of that long-winded vhf mayday whatsit rigmarole. After all, since he still knows so little about first aid, engine maintenance, passage planning and so forth, you guessed (correctly) he won't know much about using vhf either. But despite all your precautions on his behalf on that last episode , his girlfriend *still* ended up in hospital for over a month.
Poor old Moby still hasn't twigged that he and mobos just don't seem to mix, that your ideas are just bad news for him, and yet ..here he is again, questioning you about what it's like in the west country, the French coast, the Med and more. In the past, you've suggested that perhaps he tries another sport or pastime such as the cinema, banger racing or anything but Moby is a latter-day Mr Toad and won't hear a word of quitting his beloved motorboating. He's also quite well off since his well-insured wife and family were mangled by a ferry last summer, so you can get him to change boats no problem.
So, as before, it's pretty much in your hands to point this luckless dolt in any particular direction for his next adventure, another one which will almost certainly end with a crisis of possibly fatal proportions for him and/or his crew. Essentially, YOU decide where he goes, in what boat, on what day and with which crew. So...what now skip?
